Seems like lots of people looking to fix audio problems are finding there way here for answers and not all are finding the solution to their specific problems. While helping everyone may be too big a goal, I offer this "Part 2" on troubleshooting audio devices in Vista in an effort to be "more helpful". [Part 1 is here]

Uninstall any audio management software (such as Sigma Tel Audio) and then obtain the latest from your computer manufacturer website. Often video and audio drivers can come with management software that normally helps, but with Vista could be another place for Vista incompatibility. Generally, ensuring you remove your existing management software and driver, reboot, and then install the very latest is a reliable measure to getting back in business.

If you are working with a computer from a major manufacturer like Dell, HP or IBM hit their sites for drivers/management software. If that does not work, you can move on to obtaining the latest for your specific hardware at the audio card manufacturer's site but unless you open the computer up and look in the right place it can be difficult to ascertain just what you have in there.

Naturally if you installed the audio card yourself either because you built the computer up yourself or upgraded the card, you'll need to hit the manufacturer's site directly for the required driver. The manual, box or bag you got with the card should give you the information you need to select the correct driver. Also sites often provide pictures or drawings to help you identify your card and determine the correct driver. One additional issue with self-installed audio cards is that the front audio jack will often not work unless you specifically wire it. So if the rear jack works but not those on the front of the computer, look to the manual (if you don't have it most manuals can be found online) for what wires need to be connected for this to function properly.

 
Continue reading No Audio Output in Vista, Part 2...

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Posted by Bob Kelly | Permalink | |

A bug has been reported (and addressed by this hotfix) whereby you may be prompted to activate Windows Vista on a computer on which Windows Vista activation was not previously required. An example of this is if you get Vista installed by an OEM or using a volume license. This specific issue does not occur on Retail versions of Windows Vista (if you installed it yourself).

It can happen if a specific system setting is removed when a program runs with administrative credentials. Of couse they don't tell you what that is, but the removal of this system setting may cause a BIOS validation check to fail. The BIOS validation check is part of the system activation process. Therefore, you may be prompted to activate Windows Vista, even though the system did not previously require activation.

They do provide a specific example where this problem is known to occur when you use Intuit QuickBooks 2007 (although it is not necessarilly limited to QuickBooks and can happen if you installsome "other programs or device drivers". No, don't go yelling at Intuit! Microsoft admits that this is not an issue in the installed program or device driver, but is caused by a system problem in Windows Vista.

 
Continue reading HotFix 931573 - Prompted to Activate when Already Activated...

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Organizations with volume license agreements with Microsoft will find they will need to implement a central Key Management Service (KMS) to activate-- and even to maintain these activations for Vista PC and Windows Server 2008 systems. It has always been the "gold disk" or volume license product keys that have found there way to the outside to be used again and again by anyone that stumbles upon some shady site sharing them with the world. Microsoft stands to make up considerable money lost to this activity through this new strategy. However, they needed to implement something that would be of minimal impact to their legitimate volume license customers. The solution is KMS (for both volume license keys (VLKs) and multiple activation keys (MAK)) which will provide activation services. The major difference between the MAK and the VAK is that the MAK requires a one-time activation only. The VAKs require re-activation every 180 days. The most important differentiation is that MAK also requires a communication with Microsoft whereas VAKs never require access to Microsoft’s activation Web site. This is very important for disconnected networks as MAK licenses are not functional without at least some level of Internet connectivity.

While you do not need a KMS server if you are using MAKs, you will need one if you are using VAKs.

Those of you annoyed by the whole activation requirement will be happy to hear that as of now 2007 Microsoft Office system will continue to use product keys that bypass product activation (Volume Activation 1.0 (VA 1.0))

 
Continue reading Volume License Key Activation...

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Can't get enough RAM installed? More RAM may make a better PC, but if you have a standard 32-bit system don't bother getting more than 4GB as that the most the system will report to Windows. This is simply an architectural limitation of 32-bit Windows. In fact, it is more like 3GB!

A 32-bit version of Vista will never even use the full 4GB of RAM in your system.  It's because of the memory mapped IO reservations, which control how the onboard memory on your installed devices overwrites parts of the system memory, which lowers the total memory available to Vista itself.  According to Microsoft, the 32-bit version of Vista is limited to 3.12GB of total available memory: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605

This goes the same for servers, which is a key reason why 64-bit computers are getting increased attention. Memory is no longer expensive and it can help a lot so limitations like this become a real headache for many.

 
Continue reading Windows Vista RAM Limitations...

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If you have an upgrade DVD and want to do a fresh installation-- you can, you'll just need to take a few extra steps to get the job done…

Start by booting the computer using the Vista upgrade DVD. Select the 'Install Now' option, but don't enter the Product Key (leave it blank) and deselect the option to automatically activate. Setup will ask you to confirm that you want to install without a product key entered; yes this is what you want to do. Now setup does not know what edition you are installing, so you'll need to tell it-- tell it the correct edition you have the upgrade (you will not be able to trick it, so choose the correct edition). Now, you'll get to choose the type of install and you actually want to choose 'Custom (Advanced)' install and not the 'Upgrade' install. At this point Vista will copy all the files and do some rebooting. When it is done, you will want to restart the installation process so you can apply your upgrade by rebooting the computer to the Vista upgrade DVD a second time. Click 'Install Now' and ensure the option to check for updates now is deselected. Now you can go ahead and enter your Vista product key (and again deselect the option to automatically activate). This time, choose the type of install you are performing correctly as 'Upgrade'-- now you are doing a proper upgrade. You may be asked to if you wish to boot from the DVD again, you can just wait a few seconds here and the setup process will continue on its own (no interaction should be required). When it is done, go ahead and activate your copy of Vista (you'll need to within 30 days unless you choose to extend the default 30 day period).

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The ways to go about installing Windows were once quite limited. There has long also been a method of unattended installation, but new to the mix is the native ability to take advantage of imaging technology. We also have the enhanced RIS (Remote Installation Services) now named WDS (Windows Deployment Services). There is the old fashioned manual installation process too, but the key thing to realize when evaluating these options is that they are all driven by the same installation process. Its Image Based Setup (IBS) is employed no matter how the installation is performed (yes even from the DVD). Here I want to discuss some of the many benefits to this new installation methodology, because it is just really cool...

With Vista (and Windows Server 2008) instead of actually performing a setup, the IBS determines if it will be performing an upgrade or a clean installation and then "installs" Windows simply by decompressing the file based image to the hard drive, applying the appropriate parameters along the way.

One of the key benefits to the IBS is that it employs a single instance store (SIS) to fit the multiple editions of Vista on the same DVD. While all the editions are there, the SIS stores only one copy of each shared file which allows for the saving of space necessary to pull this off.

This SIS capability is possible largely because the image is file based. Traditional imaging products have always used a binary image which basically treated each partition or drive as one big file. With its file-based format, another great benefit is the ability to perform a non-destructive upgrade of a previous version of Vista. You still need the drive space necessary to decompress the file based image for processing, but you don't have to loose a thing in the process of upgrading or reinstalling Windows. Yet another benefit of the file based image is that you can generate an image on one system and then apply it to almost any other system. This has been a major drawback to imaging in the past primarily due to their being dependent on the hardware abstraction layer (HAL) of the computer that was used to generate it. With Vista, the only limitation is processor architecture (a 32-bit image cannot be installed on a 64-bit system)

I've covered how to do this before, but it is worth reiterating that it is also possible to mount and unmount images as folders which can be edited without actually having to install and recapture the image. This is very handy for the installation of drivers, patches, and other options. In fact, I'd be surprised not to see some third party tools enter the market which may take further advantage of this capability.

 
Continue reading The New Windows Setup...

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Migrating to a new OS or computer can be painful when you consider all the customizations you inject over time. There are a handful of products on the market to help you deal with this, at the one-by-one home level, and by the thousands with enterprise migration offerings. Here are a few to check out if your looking for such a solution. ..

Desktop DNA (Unicenter)
Recently acquired from Miramar Systems this tool has been doing the job of helping people migrate settings in a corporate environment for some time. A long history of tackling this problem means more experience as a mature product with knowledge of a large number of applications and the potential problems each might present.

USMT (Microsoft)
USMT is Microsoft's enterprise class migration tool for the automated migration of many systems, typically in an unattended deployment scenario. It's new v3.0 release is specifically for the migration of Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Vista systems only.

Easy Transfer (Microsoft)
Easy Transfer is the user end migration tool from Microsoft. This one targeted at individual users-- free of course (hate MS if you want, but they do give a lot away!)

PC Mover (Laplink)
Intended for home use, this actually makes use of USB cable to move your settings and files from one computer to another. It even claims to move your applications.

Easy PC Transfer (Migo Software)
This one migrates files and settings and boasts that is the easiest to use of them all. At a glance, this appears to be the product in the market geared toward the "non-technical" user.

PC Transplant Pro (Altiris)
PC Transplant has been around for a few years now and offers all the command line and configuration file support you'd expect to help automate migrations on a large scale (for use with or without Altiris' enterprise management framework).

Migration Studio (Tranxition)
One of the only players on an enterprise scale that makes migration their core business. If you are evaluating products for a corporate migration, this one is a must for your evaluation.

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Not getting any sound? First be sure that your audio playback device is properly installed by right clicking on the volume icon (by default this is found at the bottom right by the time in the notification area). Select "Playback Devices" and you should see a list of valid output devices. You may have only one, but you should have at least one. You should see a little green circle with a checkmark and a status of "Working" following the description of the device.

If you do not see any devices, you'll need to install one. This is normally a driver issue, so installing the proper driver should do the trick. You can also check out the "Device Manager" by pressing the "Start orb" and typing "Device Manager" in the search box, if it is on top you can hit enter-- otherwise click it from the search results to start it up. If you see any question mark icons in this tree, they indicate hardware problems. For sound to work, you should see at least one sound device under "Sound, video and game controllers" such as "High Definition Audio Device". If you double-click on it you should see the device status as "This device is working properly."

At this stage we will assume you have a working audio device and you are facing a configuration issue of some kind. There are a couple of possibilities worth discussing...

 
Continue reading No Audio Output in Vista, Part 1...

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I have not seen any third-party GUI front ends for XImage yet. Do I have to do it myself? In the meantime, you'll need to keep familiar with the command line arguments offered by XImage. Below is a quick break down:

/append = Appends a volume image into an existing WIM file
/apply = Applies a volume image to the specified drive
/capture = Captures a volume image into a new WIM file
/commit = Commits the changes made to a mounted WIM
/compress = Sets compression type to none, fast or maximum
/config = Uses the specified file to set advanced options
/delete = Deletes an image from a WIM file with multiple images
/dir = Displays a list of files and folders within a volume image
/export = Transfers an image from one WIM file to another WIM file
/info = Returns the store's XML descriptions for the specified WIM
/mount = Mounts an image, with read-only access, to the specified directory
/mountrw = Mounts an image, with read-write access, to the specified directory
/ref = Sets WIM references for an Apply operation
/scroll = Scrolls output for redirection
/split = Splits an existing WIM file into multiple read-only WIM parts
/verify = Verifies duplicate and extracted files
/unmount = Unmounts the image mounted to the specified directory
/? = Returns valid command-line parameters for XImage

For more related articles, click here.

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In the past, deploying other languages besides English meant deploying an entirely separate edition of Windows. You just can't lay languages like Russian and Japanese on top of XP Pro. Even worse, service packs and hot fixes must be pushed separately for each language edition. While this is not too bit a deal if you are dealing with only one language, on a network where you support more than one language, this could be a real pain.

Windows Vista is a modularized OS, meaning that every edition of Vista sits on top of a common base (referred to as MinWin). This contains the core functionality of the OS-- in fact, Microsoft says this base contains about 95% of Vista's functionality. To get another edition or language, you just add the appropriate module on top of the base. In fact, Vista has no language-specific code at all. It is language-agnostic to the degree that not even English is in the base OS.

In the end, this means it is going to be much easier to deploy editions and languages and the language for service packs and hotfixes no longer need be a concern. Hearing so much negative about Vista and how difficult it makes things, I think it is all the more important to point out things like this. Making things easier on users often means more difficult on administrators-- but here is something just for the Admins this time (your users could care less!)

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